If not intentially a minority and I get into a fight and I did not know they were gay, palestinian, jewish, or whatever. Can I still be charged with a hate crime? Or does one have to know first?

Don_Dickle · 10 days ago

If not intentially a minority and I get into a fight and I did not know they were gay, palestinian, jewish, or whatever. Can I still be charged with a hate crime? Or does one have to know first?

southsamurai · 10 days ago

The standard of proof to prosecute a hate crime is higher than that of assault and battery.

It isn’t impossible to have a hate crime tagged onto a fight, but if there’s no supporting evidence, chances are lower, and if there’s evidence the fight was about something else, lower still.

Like, if you’re yelling at the asshole about spilling your beer, and then it turns into a fight, you’d have to fuck up to have the hate charge added on. If you had a history of bigotry to whatever class that person is, or something along those lines.

I’m not saying you couldn’t run into a prosecutor with an axe to grind or whatever, but it is less common